


Still Got Each Other

by Colourcodedbinders



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Camping, F/M, Gen, Like they're camping at first and then they're not, Mentions of Suicide, Past Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Scott is a Good Friend, Stiles is heartbroken, it's bad don't read it, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 21:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11021505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colourcodedbinders/pseuds/Colourcodedbinders
Summary: “I can’t leave Scott, or the pack, Lydia!” he’d said. Actually, more like yelled. He’d yelled at the top of his lungs, listing every reason he couldn’t leave the town. He’d yelled and kicked the ground and then yelled some more, and once he was done, Lydia had left the room, stating that she was starting to feel sick, never answering his misconceptions. She hadn’t yelled back, hadn’t told him that he was stupid for even assuming that she would suggest leaving for good, hadn’t fought like she was capable of, like she was known to do. Instead, she’d lowered her voice, and asked to be excused.If only Scott had given it a second thought. Maybe she would still be here.ORIn which Scott and Stiles go through the aftermath of losing someone they both love oh so much, and have to remind each other that, in the end, neither of them is alone.





	Still Got Each Other

**Author's Note:**

> Read at your own risk? 
> 
> Um, so, I've been working on this honey for quite a while, and I'm kind of proud of how it turned out? It's really close to my heart, and I can only hope you guys enjoy it even half as much as I enjoyed writing it. (If you listen to Somebody to Die For by Hurts while reading, you'll understand me.)
> 
> That being said, don't expect much. i can't write for my life.
> 
> Also, these characters are so complex it makes writing them as much of a nightmare as it is a dream come true.
> 
> Also, also, Not beta-ed, so all mistakes are mine and mine only!

Scott sighs as he watches Stiles, his eyes focused on the road, his fingers drumming against the steering wheel at an incredibly fast pace. The slight bounce in his leg tells the Alpha that he’s also furiously tapping his foot against the brake pedal. His hair is unkempt, as it usually is, and the grey t-shirt he’s wearing had a stain right under the collar, near the breast pocket. His pants are wrinkled at the bottom, now that no one’s there to iron them anymore. He looks tired, too. Exhausted, with the almost red bags under his eyes and the never disappearing creases in his forehead.

They’ve been driving for nearly an hour, and still, Stiles hasn’t spoken. It’s making Scott uncomfortable. The radio’s been playing the whole time, but never, in his whole life, has any moment felt so utterly _quiet_ to the guy.

“Stiles,” he says, once they’re only half an hour away from their destination, annoyed with the silence. “Dude, talk to me.”

Stiles’s way of acknowledging him is to spare him a side-glance.

“Are you mad at me?”

“No,” the boy then replies, his voice raspy, as if it hasn’t been used in a long time. “Of course I’m not mad. Why would I be mad at the fact that Scott freaking McCall spontaneously decided to go on a camping trip? I mean, all I’ve packed is two shirts and a pair of pants, dude. Why did you even think that this trip was necessary?”

“Because,” Scott replies, his eyes focused on the side of friend’s face, who hasn’t lost his focus on the road yet. “I miss spending time with you.”

“We see each other every day,” Stiles answers, his hand only leaving the steering wheel to come up and scratch his chin, then going back to assume its original position. “How much more of me do you want to see?”

He’s not right, not really. Yes, Scott sees Stiles every day, considering they live a block apart and are a part of the same pack, on top of the fact that they’re best friends and whatnot, but honestly, the person Scott’s been meeting for the past three months isn’t his best friend. It’s an empty shell, a hollow carcass, only the face of the person that Scott loves more than he loves himself.

Look, Scott’s seen Stiles’s body possessed by a fucking _malevolent fox_ , but even that doesn’t compare to what Stiles has become now.

He’s become a work addict, as if the red strings on his crime boards will make up for the ones that broke inside him that night. As if bringing justice to the dead, to their loved ones, will make him feel a little less broken inside. He doesn’t go out anymore, just sits at home with Lydia’s old blanket wrapped around him, as if it’ll bring her back, as if the warmth provided by the blanket could ever compare to the way she made him feel. As if the piece of cloth could gather up every shattered piece of his heart and somehow put him back together.

Scott knows too well that it won’t. It hasn’t in three months, and it never will. And he’s a reliable source. After all, he _does_ still carry around that fleur-de-lis key-chain Allison once gave him.

Truth be told, Scott doesn’t know why he called up Stiles in the middle of the day, telling him to pack a minimal amount of clothing and to fill up gas in his (yeah, Scott couldn’t handle that piece of crap vehicle anymore, he gave it back) jeep. What he does know, however, is that he needs to bring Stiles back. His Stiles. And to do that, they need to spend time together. Camping just happened to be the cheapest option.

“Stop asking questions,” he says to Stiles finally. “And drive faster.”

“There’s a speed limit.”

Scott bends forward and sees that the jeep is rolling at sixty-nine mph. Exactly one mile below the limit. Which means that Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Freaking Stilinski, Scott’s best friend, founding member of the McCall pack, is actually obeying a law.

 _God_ , Scott desperately needs this trip to go well.

“Since when do you care about speed limits?” he asks then, his voice light, mocking, displaying the exact opposite of what he feels inside. “Just hit the pedal. I’d like to get to the reserve before dark.”

“We live right next to the goddamned woods,” Stiles mutters, but presses on the pedal anyway, bringing their speed up to seventy-seven miles per hour, letting their previous conversation to be forgotten with every new song blasting on the radio.

* * *

 

Lakewood Reserve arrives twenty minutes later, and Stiles parks the jeep on the edge of narrow dirt road, staring at the setting sun as he gets up to go get their things from the back of the vehicle. He pays no attention to Scott whatsoever, aside from the fact that he hands him a couple of bags before beginning his walk to the camping site.

Of all people, Scott had never expected _Lydia_ to be the one to rip Stiles away from him. Not that it was her fault. No one chooses to die.

Two bags full of burger supplies in his arms, Scott follows his friend silently. He doesn’t care how much it hurts. He doesn’t care if Lydia can’t come back and help him win Stiles back. He’ll do it himself. He can’t lose both his best friends at the same time. He refuses to give up.

* * *

 

Okay, so maybe he isn’t so opposed to give up on getting this tent standing.

“Why,” Stiles starts as he turns the manual in all directions, squinting his eyes at the directions, “are the fucking,” he continues as he turns the paper once more, “instructions in Cantonese?”

 _Because you ordered the tent online from Hong Kong_ , Scott almost says, but then decides against it and keeps his mouth shut as he tries, much in vain, to get the structure up. He’s been trying his best to plant the tent’s pegs into the ground, using the hammer that’s come with, but finds himself unable to have the rods stand up straight like they need them to. Instead, the metal bars that make up the tent’s framework keep falling to the side, and the whole thing strangely reminds him of those weird air dancers outside car manufacturers, the red material floppily swinging in the forest wind, bathing in the orange light of the campfire.

Yeah, it looks that bad.

“What would you say to sleeping outside?”

“Does it require an assembly?”

“I really hope not.”

Stiles sighs and walks over to Scott, helping him roll the tent and put it away. Once it’s sitting next to their shared carry-on, he takes two folding chairs and comes back, giving one to Scott and seating himself across from him, on the other side of the fire they’ve constructed an hour ago, when the sun had set. Leaning over and stretching his arms out, he reaches for a plastic bag and pulls it back onto his lap. From inside it comes out the blanket, which Stiles wordlessly wraps around his shoulders, handing another one to Scott, before he pulls out a case of beer bottles and hands it to Scott.

“If I’m going to spend my night lying in plain sight of bears that might be wanting to make me their breakfast for tomorrow, I might as well be drunk enough to fall asleep,” he offers as an explanation. “You should probably just drink for moral support.”

Skeptically eyeing the bottle on his best friend’s lap, Scott slowly takes the case from his hands and uncaps the first bottle. If he’s going to convince Stiles to live on without Lydia, to come back to him, to his best friend in the entire world, he might as well have him drunk enough not to be able to formulate arguments against him. The worry in his eyes never fading as they’re locked on a pair of brown ones, he brings the bottle to his lips.

It doesn’t exactly take all that long before the human’s intoxicated beyond reason.

He can tell that Stiles is wasted. His eyes are glassy, and his fingers fumble more than usual as he tries to uncap his next bottle, his gaze unfocused and distant and _cold_ all at the same time. Sometimes, he mumbles incoherent sentences to himself as he sits there, drinking, and for a while, Scott wonders if his friend’s forgotten that he’s even here.

Then he wonders if he’s felt that way since Lydia’s left.

The answer’s obvious to him.

Wordlessly getting off his seat, Scott goes up to Stiles and pries the bottle out of his hands, rubbing his shoulder slightly in comfort as the boy whimpers at the loss of his drink. Carefully, Scott empties out the bottle onto the dry, summer soil and places the bottle, and all the others, near their luggage. Conveniently out of Stiles’s reach from where they sit.

As he goes back to assume his previous position, Scott is startled by Stiles’s voice. A simple, soft, broken voice, as his next words are spoken barely above a whisper.

“It fucking hurts, Scott.”

Scott takes a deep breath and walks across the campfire to place himself in front of Stiles’s chair, crouching in front of his best friend, a hand on his shoulder as the other rests on his arm, holding his elbow.

“I know,” he answers.

It doesn’t bother him that he sounds just as broken as the man in front of him looks.

“I loved her so much,” is the reply.

Stiles has tears in his eyes as he looks into the Alpha’s, who mirrors his expression. Scott knows that Stiles loved her. That they both did. So he says that.

“So did I.”

Stiles’s tears run down his cheeks as he exhales loudly, letting out a long, ragged, breath, turning his face towards the side, staring at the trees towards his right.

“And she just fucking left. She survived Peter and Jackson and the Darach and _the goddamn Nogitsune_ but she couldn’t make it through a human sword wound.”

Scott changes positions so that his friend is looking at him again.

“You know it’s not her fault, Stiles.”

Stiles locks his gaze on the werewolf’s.

“You’re right. It’s not her fault. She was just trying to help the pack. It’s mine. My fucking girlfriend and I let her die. I couldn’t protect her. It’s my fault, Scott.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Then whose is it? Whose fault is it that Allison, Aiden, and Lydia are dead? Me. It’s my fault. I killed Donovan, and I killed two of my friends, and I killed my own freaking girlfriend as well.”

“Stiles...”

Scott is interrupted.

“Do you know what the last thing I said to her was?”

Scott shuts his mouth. Of course he knows what the last thing Stiles ever said to Lydia was. He remembered everything about that day like it had happened only yesterday. The memories of her in her final moments, the sound of her voice speaking to him for the last time ever; they still plague his mind, like both a blessing and curse alike.

Stiles and Lydia had been arguing. It was bound to happen, really. Lydia had wanted to move out of Beacon Hills. She’d had enough of the stupid town, she’d said. She wanted to move to San Francisco, where she believed they’d easily find job offers, both her and her boyfriend. For once, she had wanted to _breathe._ This town suffocated her. She needed to get out and live a little, before eventually, maybe a couple years later, coming back and settling down for good.

Because in the end, she knew that as much as she needed to get away from Beacon Hills to breathe, Stiles needed it. And that as long as she had Stiles and Scott with her, acting as her personal little oxygen tanks, Lydia would happily live wherever. Even the town she first met Peter Hale and lost her best friend in. After she’d regained her sanity, she was ready to compromise.

Compromise for Stiles.

Compromise for Scott.

Compromise for herself.

Problem? She had only ever confessed that last part to Scott. Stiles had always believed that she’d wanted San Francisco to be her forever. Maybe, Scott thinks, he still believes it. Still believes that Lydia was asking him to choose between her and himself. Until today, no one had told him that he thought wrong. Scott knows he’s the one to blame for that.

But, yeah, choosing between Lydia and Beacon Hills? Wasn’t exactly a decision Stiles was ever willing to make.

 _“I can’t leave Scott, or the pack, Lydia!”_ he’d said. Actually, more like yelled. He’d yelled at the top of his lungs, listing every reason he couldn’t leave the town. He’d yelled and kicked the ground and then yelled some more, and once he was done, Lydia had left the room, stating that she was starting to feel sick, never answering his misconceptions. She hadn’t yelled back, hadn’t told him that he was stupid for even assuming that she would suggest leaving for good, hadn’t fought like she was capable of, like she was known to do. Instead, she’d lowered her voice, and asked to be excused.

If only Scott had given it a second thought. Maybe she would still be here.

Truth be told, they’d all believed that she left because, for the first time in six years, her boyfriend had lost his temper with her, in front of the entire pack, too, and that she needed to be away from him to recollect her thoughts, to tell him that he thought wrong. They thought that she’d needed space to herself for a while. Stiles and Lydia had fought before. They fought all the time. They argued and bickered and rolled their eyes at each other beyond limits, but it had never gotten to this. Never had an argument that had ended so badly. It was only obvious that the others thought Lydia needed space.

They’d learn later on that night that it had more to do with the unsettling ball of knowledge of what was going to happen that had just decided to place itself in the pit of her stomach, in the back of her throat.

That in that moment, she had learned that she was about to die.

As soon as her footsteps faded, the door to Stiles’s room gently closing behind her, her boyfriend, naturally, was going to follow, to apologize for yelling at her, and maybe to learn that her proposal to move out was temporary, but he never got the chance. As soon as he turned to go, Liam had come in, screaming about having found the miscreants that had been killing citizens left and right for the past week.

It was all strictly business after that. Lydia had come out a while later, a gentle smile on her face as she joined in on the conversation. She did, however, never get the chance to exchange a single word with Stiles during the meeting.

They constructed a plan, together. They’d have Kira placed in the center of it all, as bait, in the reserve. Why Kira? Because now that she was fully in control of her powers, they’d decided that she was the best suited to hold off a bunch of half-kitsune, half-coyote hybrids. Who better trained to lead an attack against kitsunes than a kitsune herself?

As soon as the hybrids came close to the girl, Scott, Liam, Hayden, and Malia, who would have been hiding until they had all the chimeras in sight, would go out and fight them. Fighting to injure, Scott had to remind them several times, never to kill. It wasn’t their intention to walk out of the woods that night with a dead body. They’d have to render every single on unconscious with the help of that mountain ash based sedative they’d learned to confection, and then Stiles, Lydia, Mason and Corey would come in, and together, they’d all transport the bodies to an electromagnetic pattern locked, kitsune safe, coyote proof cabin that they’d constructed for this specific purpose a few days prior.

The plan actually went perfectly for the first half. It was all downhill from there on, though.

What the pack hadn’t taken into consideration was that these chimeras had originally created themselves, and that if they had the power to create, they definitely had the power to reproduce. Once the second wave of pack members had arrived, so had a surprise second wave of kitsune-coyotes. The attack had come from all directions, with almost triple the number of individuals that had been anticipated.

Naturally, everyone had been thrown into chaos, and the pack had no choice but to draw their weapons and fight. Mason held a bat and stood at Liam’s side, Corey tried his best to fend off enemies on his own, and Lydia got ready to fight as Stiles, armed with his gun, decided to join Scott.

Somewhere during the battle, Stiles had strayed away from Scott, helping Malia fend off opponents, and Lydia had made her way to the Alpha, brandishing the crossbow she had recently mastered.

“Scott,” she had said in between taking shots, “you’re my best friend. You know that, right?”

Scott, confused at the topic of conversation (during a battle!), could only groan in affirmation.

“And you mean the world to me,” she had added after planting an arrow into a kitsune-coyote’s shoulder. “I love you.”

“Lydia,” Scott had answered as he dodged a sword, pinning an enemy down for Lydia to hit him with a sedative-laced arrow, “What’s going on?”

Lydia smiled at him as she shot another arrow, this time hitting a chimera getting ready to attack Corey. “I just want you to remember that.”

Until this day, Scott wishes he had understood what she was getting at. Maybe, then, he could have stopped it.

Instead, what he did was answer, “I love you too, Lydia,” as he jumped up to claw at an attacker.

And then, calmly, Lydia had said, “Take care of yourselves, both of you,” as she ran the opposite direction before Scott could react.

Confused, the werewolf ran behind her, dodging and delivering blows alike in his passage. When he finally caught up to her, she was standing next to Stiles, their weapons drawn in opposite directions.

“Stiles,” she had started, only to be interrupted.

“Not while we’re in the middle of a battle,” Stiles had said before jumping to save Liam from a blow, “I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

In response to that, she had smiled once again and said, in her gentlest voice, _“I love you.”"_

The rest happened in a whim.

It was poetic in a way, that she had died in a way so parallel to Allison. She had shot an arrow in the leg of a chimera, and, somewhere during the groaning and moaning of the victim, another one had crept up behind her and passed a sword right through her torso. Right under her ribs.

She didn’t even survive long enough to scream.

Something broke inside Scott then, and, running over to Lydia’s body, he began to cry. He didn’t fight after that. He didn’t have to. There was no point. All he did was hold Lydia’s limp form, his eyes filled with tears as he saw Stiles running towards him, his gun dropped to the ground, left for Mason to pick up. Stiles kneeled in front of her, cradling her face in his hands as he sobbed, begging her to open her eyes, to come back. He took her off of Scott’s lap and onto his own, her blood bathing both of their clothes, as well as her own, as she lay there.

Motionless, lifeless.

Gone.

And then it had felt to Scott like the people fighting around them had drowned away, like the light emitted from the moon had faded, like it was only the three of them in the darkness, for the last time ever.

Yeah, he definitely remembers. Of course he does.

Lost in the memories of a night he shouldn’t have witnessed, he doesn’t even realize that he’s crying.

As he looks up, he sees that Stiles is, too.

“I said, ‘I don’t want to talk to you right now’, Scott,” he answers his own question, his voice broken, “And she replied with ‘I love you’. Do you know what that means?”

Scott doesn’t say a word.

“It means she knew.” Then, a bitter laugh, one that lasts a good second before disappearing again, as if it had never been there. “Of course she knew. She was a fucking goddamned banshee.”

“She didn’t want to worry you, or any of us, Stiles,” Scott tries, defending his lost friend. “She thought the mission was more important.”

 _“Thought,”_ Stiles says, his voice a little louder, a little angrier now. “She thought that these hybrid shits mattered more than her. But they didn’t, did they? She never stopped to think that I’d rather be worried than live without her? Did she stop to think that, Scott? Or did she just fucking go on and do what she _thought_ was right?”

Scott stays silent, staring into his best friend’s eyes. Eyes that had once held mischief, joy, and so much love, were now looking back at him, all traces of Stiles gone. Just cold, dead, serious eyes.

Never, in his entire life, has Scott felt this broken. As Stiles looks at him, expecting an answer, his emotionless stare boring a hole through the werewolf’s skull, Scott realizes how _shattered_ he feels inside. How irreparably crushed he is, they both are. What’s the point of being your own anchor when the rope that had always tied you back to your ship just… broke? How was he supposed to survive, floating around in an ocean of nothing, with only the carcass of what had once been his best friend by his side, if Lydia wasn’t there to guide him back home, her mind bright like the glow emitted from a lighthouse at the shore? If Lydia and Stiles really are gone, then, what is Scott doing? Where’s his home, if not for with his best friends? Is he meant to be like this for the rest of his life, lost, broken and alone?

 _No,_ the alpha decides, his resolve building up. He exhales, locking his eyes on Stiles, choosing to ignore the tears streaming down his face at an alarming rate.

Scott knows where home is; it’s right in front of him. Broken, shattered, beaten down, _hopeless_ , even, but still there, right in front of his face, not even three feet away from him.

All he needs to do is a little fixing up.

“She was selfless,” he answered confidently, “It didn’t matter to her, Stiles. You know that.”

The boy sitting on the ground slouches then, his body giving up on holding him straight. His shoulders sag and his gaze is fixed on Scott’s shoes as he says, his voice quiet, barely audible even in this quiet environment, “Couldn’t she be a little selfish? For me?”

To that, Scott only gives his best friend a hand gently placed on his lap as he sits on the ground, next to him, as an answer.

“You’ll make it through this, Stiles,” he says, “We both will.”

A long silence stretches between the two men then, nothing but the occasional rustling of leaves in the background every few seconds. Scott doesn’t move, his hand placed on Stiles’s leg, his vision fixed on his face. It’s the human that breaks the silence.

“What if I don’t want to?”

 _What if I don’t want to._ Six words. Seventeen letters. Six stupid words that knock the wind out of a true alpha’s lungs almost effortlessly. Scott doesn’t even notice the surprised “What?” that escapes him.

“What if I want to join her?” Stiles clarifies then, much to Scott’s horror. He’s looking at him square in the face, his lips pressed into a thin line as he shakes lightly, his jaw clenching and unclenching with no specific rhythm, “I’ve got nothing here. Mom’s gone. Dad’s gone. Lydia’s gone. Maybe I should be gone, too. Maybe it’s what would be better.”

_He’s got nothing here. He’s got nothing here. He’s got nothing here._

The words play on repeat in Scott’s mind, fluttering around every crevice of his conscience, taking over his every sense. What does he mean, _he’s got nothing here?_ Claudia’s gone. The Sheriff’s gone. Lydia’s gone, too. But Scott hasn’t moved. He’s been here the whole time. He’s always been right here, holding Stiles’s hand, trying to pick up his broken pieces as he sheds them. Why doesn’t the boy see that? Why, especially in this tough time, has Stiles forgotten his best friend, his brother?

_His brother._

_Brother._

_“Scott, you’re my brother, and I need you.”_

”Give me your keys,” Scott says then, getting up and holding his palm out to his friend, “And let’s go to the jeep.”

“Wha–”

“No questions. Give me your keys, and go sit in your stupid car.”

 _He’s got nothing here, my ass_ , Scott thinks. _He’s still got me._

* * *

 It’s almost ten minutes later that they finally stop the car, Stiles sitting on the passenger’s side, dumbstruck and confused, staring at Scott, whose face gives away nothing.

The Alpha cuts the engine, and, walking over to the passenger’s side door, he pulls Stiles out, holding onto his hand as tightly as he can, and begins dragging him away from the vehicle. Stiles, who manages to shut the door right before being pulled away, follows Scott, whose grip on his hand apparently is starting to feel painful, asking questions in vain.

Walking as fast as he can, the werewolf only stops moving once they’re standing on the edge of a steep cliff, overlooking a vast forest about 60 feet below. His grip on Stiles’s hand tightens.

He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. This isn’t Scott’s way of doing things. He would’ve sat there, in the dirt, trying to talk Stiles out of wanting to die. He would’ve hugged him, held him tightly against his chest, reminding him that he’s still there. He wouldn’t have driven his suicidal friend to the edge of a cliff, like he did just now. This is crazy. This is not something Scott would do.

 _Then why am I here,_ Scott thinks to himself. _Why did I bring him here?_ And then, looking away from the greenery below and scanning Stiles’s face, he thinks, _maybe this is what Lydia would’ve done._

Taking a deep breath, he tries to steady his racing heartbeat as he speaks.

“Jump.”

Stiles’s glassy eyes widen and his lips part considerably as he looks at his friend, practically motionless.

“Huh?”

“You said you wanted to be gone like Lydia and your parents,” Scott explains, surprised at the sudden anger in his voice. “Jump.”

At that, he sees resolve building behind the human’s eyes, and for a second, he’s afraid that maybe, Stiles will listen to him. That he’ll run off the cliff, taking Scott with him. That he’ll end them both, right there and then.

Instead, the boy, his face void of expression, tries in vain to release his wrist from between Scott’s fingers. He struggles for a while, trying to pry his arm free, but comes up with no result. He lets out a frustrated groan and looks up at Scott, then at the cliff, and then back at Scott, his mask still in place save for the tears clearly fighting to escape from his eyes.

Satisfied at the strength of his grip on his best friend, and a little relieved, too, Scott speaks again.

“Jump, Stiles.”

“But you won’t let go of me.”

Scott tries to smile.

“That’s right,” he says, “I won’t.”

He doesn’t know what he’s trying to prove, or how he’s going to prove it, but he knows that the words he’s just spoken are nothing short of the truth. Scott won’t ever let go of Stiles Stilinski. Not if he can help it.

“Remember back when Allison died, Stiles?”

Stiles’s eyes snap up at that. His tears fall down his cheeks in streams, and he doesn’t speak.

Scott takes that as a green light to go on.

“I survived that,” he says, “Don’t you think that I wanted to be gone, too? _Every single day_ , man, every single moment, I thought of joining her,” he pauses, and then, his voice quieter, “It’s what I deserved. She was a part of my pack and I couldn’t protect her.” He lifts his gaze up to the sky, where a few stars are visible in between the scattered almost purple clouds. “I loved her and I let her die, just like that. I couldn’t save her. I wanted to be gone so bad, Stiles. But I stayed. Right here, with you.”

He stayed. He stayed because whenever he felt empty, the Alpha would look at Stiles, or Lydia, or Kira, and it would feel as though maybe, Allison wouldn’t want him to join her this soon. As though he still had a purpose, leading his pack, protecting his friends, his family. As though the presence of his friends made him a little less hollow. As though if he stayed, maybe he’d be full again. Maybe not completely, never completely, but enough to get by. Enough to be happy.

“You’ve always been stronger than me, Scott. You’re the True Alpha.”

Scott groans. He’s almost frustrated enough to release his friend’s wrist.

Almost.

“Don’t you get it, Stiles? Do you have any idea why I’m this strong? Why I feel like no matter how shitty life gets, we’ll somehow be able to make it out? Why I stick around when everybody else has left?”

“Because you’re a good guy.”

“So are you! You’re just as good as I am. Nothing will ever change that. You once stepped into gasoline for me, right?”

Stiles nods, but the gesture goes unnoticed by the other boy, who keeps talking, his anger subsiding slightly.

“You knew that as soon as you stepped in, I’d stop, because I love you too much to let you die. Then _why the hell_ are you forgetting that now?”

His words are met with silence.

“I’m strong because I’ve always had you, Stiles. You’ve always been there for me, with me. Sure, we fought, but we made up, no? Isn’t that what makes us best friends, that we fight and yell at each other, but always have each others’ backs? We were there for each other. You were there for me when Dad left, when Peter bit me, when Allison died, and when I lost Mom, too. _You were my anchor._ ”

“Allison was your–“

“I don’t mean my werewolf anchor. I mean my human anchor. The one that keeps me sane. The one that keeps me alive.

I’m a True Alpha because you’re a part of my pack. You’ve been a part of my pack from the very beginning, and you will be until the very end. You’re my best friend. And if you leave, then I’ve got nothing left anymore.”

“But Kira...”

“Kira’s not my brother.”

“Scott, you don’t understand.”

“And I don’t want to. I’m not letting you take the one thing I’ve got left in this world away from me, Stiles. So if you want to be gone, go. I won’t stop you. Jump, but take me with you. Because I’m not letting go of you, _ever.”_

Scott stops talking, and both boys stand there, in the dark of the night, looking at each other as they breathe heavily, their hearts beating almost in unison at about a hundred miles an hour.

Scott stands there, motionless, expectant. He doesn’t know how Stiles will react, but his grip on his friend’s wrist is firm. Just in case.

Stiles turns his head away from Scott, then. He looks over to his side, letting his gaze wander over the acres of forest beneath them, and slowly, he takes a step away from the cliff’s edge. He looks up to see his friend, and almost crashes onto him as he embraces him tightly, crying.

“Don’t tell me to move on, Scotty. I can’t do it.”

Returning the embrace, Scott allows for images of Kira to flash before his eyes. Him and Kira at the bar, laughing. Him and Kira at Lydia’s funeral, holding on to each other for dear life. Him and Kira exchanging worried looks in the morning, when Stiles doesn’t pick up calls.

And then the flashes play again, but this time, every detail is clearer, brighter, somehow.

Him and Kira at the bar, laughing as his fingers are in his back pocket, fiddling with his fleur-de-lis almost absentmindedly.

Him and Kira at Lydia’s funeral, holding on to each other for dear life as he throws furtive glances towards the headstone only a couple of steps away, his mind numb.

Him and Kira exchanging worried looks in the morning, when Stiles doesn’t pick up calls from the cell phone where there are still pictures of his first date with the huntress with a bright smile.

Him and Kira and Allison.

His embrace tightens.

“You don’t have to move on. She’ll be with you your whole life.”

And they both stay there for who knows how long, grieving their lost loves, celebrating each other’s company, promising each other that no matter what, _They’ve all still got each other._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you didn't barf! Be sure to leave a comment. (:
> 
> A huge thank you to my buddies Emily and Gabriella for reading this and giving me feedback. I love you for doing this on the bus on our way to school even if you'd rather be sleeping.
> 
> I'm also working on other stuff, but knowing me, it'll only be posted in a month from now, so be patient if you (somehow) happen to like my work.


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